Hi, and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about classical stuff the classical world old books new Sometimes architecture philosophy theology classical education, and we are three guys who like that stuff My name is Graham Donaldson, and I am with Thomas Maggie hello and AJ Hanenburg That's me and today we are taking a sharp right-hand turn and we are talking about farm animals specifically donkeys exactly right Megbee as our resident Expert in farm animals. Yeah, yeah, please teach us about the ways of the donkey So the donkey is a domesticated member of the horse family equidai the wild ancestor of the donkey It's amazing our donkeys wait our donkeys the ones that can't have other donkeys. That's what I thought was true I'm trying to get to that part donkeys can't have donkeys can't I'm also trying to read the donkey Wikipedia page without saying the Butward and it's having to skip over lots of sentences the donkey has been used as a working animal How many quiz show how many how many years has the donkey mule me mules can't have yeah?
I think it's a mule. I think a mule is like what a donkey in a horse have a bit have a kid It's a mule is that it female horse in a male donkey having mule there you go and that mule cannot Oh, man, they are sterile. Yeah, okay. Um, how long have donkeys been in use as working in a moment word like since Yeah, it's at least 5,000 years.
I'm really committed to this bit. So that's okay 5000 years and they're just throwing out a number at that point because that's like that's where history begins So like you know when that started I'll tell you when donkeys there when history started as far back as we know How many donkeys are there in the world but today is a specific donkey named hote nice right? How many donkeys are there in the world? How the world would they know?
There's no sources is there a donkey registry is like right if I'm a farmer and I have a new donkey How do they know I'm called beef? It's like that same statistic about people swallowing spiders. Yeah, the eight spiders a year thing Yeah, I brought that up. I think before that I think that's total hogwash.
I regret bringing up the donkey joke Oh, no, I'm gonna be okay. Look, we have another hour of me eating the Wikipedia page I'm proud of yourself Graham. Oh, yeah, like how do they know how many spiders people swallow in a year? They study it how they watch all of us every night or well like even a smartphone They're like watch one person while they sleep was your smart and that person falls a few spiders like I would just be We're about the cleanliness of the lab.
That's funny We've seen the CGP great video where he talks about the spider eating thing and he's like, you know The statistic is that a person eats eight spiders every year and he goes no that's totally false He goes most people don't need any spiders, but one person has a thousand One person's just munching. I like it on my sleeve walk just find spider nests and shallow terrifying 40 million donkeys was the correct answer So correct now quote. Okay. Yeah, we are actually talking about donkey hote today So anyway, instead of me reading that fascinating Wikipedia page to all of you Do you all have any background with this book?
Have you read it? What's your I tried my best and got bored? I've never read it It's true. I started and it seemed like it seemed like there was no real thread to it and granted I just did a podcast where there seemed to be no Fred to it.
Yeah, is there not enough violence in this book for you? Yeah, there's not enough talking severed heads and bird-speak and dragon hearts and I just I said calm, right? I got more because it didn't seem like anything. It was going anywhere.
Is it like the Seinfeld of the book world? Oh my gosh Yes, it's yes. Absolutely. That's why it's perfect Graham.
Have you read this book before? I've never watched an episode of Seinfeld I'm serious. I'm serious. I never know dude.
We have I know what to do. Is that you also not seen Terminator or something? I haven't seen Terminator 2 I watch the first one. Yeah, second one's better and all the ones after that are trash, correct I don't know what to what you refer.
There are no movies after Terminator 2 That's like a what's what all the memes on Twitter that are like I'm gonna tell my children there are only two Godfather movies and one Matrix film one Matrix film okay with all the Matrix force coming out. Is that true? Yeah, this must be good film it Uh Bill and Ted three just came out. Yeah, I saw that just came out.
Yeah, I don't understand. I watched it. It was great It was a good. I really do say great.
Do you mean Bill and Ted great or do you mean like actual great? Okay, speaking of Bill and Ted we're gonna be talking about they don't they don't meet Don Quixote. They don't meet So I don't remember that first movie very well. Okay, so we are gonna be talking about Don Quixote.
It is a book and it's very good So just you all share a little bit of your background with this my first exposure to Don Quixote was in high school. I Remember being so excited to Read Don Quixote in its original Spanish. So this was a part of Spanish 5 at the school I'm sure this is at most public schools But I remember being so excited to finally get to the point where like my knowledge of the Spanish language would be so good And and you know study for you know four years made it into Spanish 5 got there did not understand a word of it I remember the teacher reading through it and there's a joke about Don Quixote's name in the first chapter about how it sounds a lot like cheesecake Which is the word cahada and I just remember my teacher just like giggling to herself and I'm like literally no idea What's going on here? So had a horrible first experience with it because I mean also I was a pretty lazy student So I didn't put in the work to learn very much about it But I imagine it's a similar experience to Sarah studied Italian and college and still keeps up with it And so when she tries to read like Dante, it's a different Italian than the one that is spoken now in the same way It's like a it's an older Spanish.
It's from the 1600s. It's just a very different language So that was a bummer So I think I read like the first two chapters as a part of that class and then stopped that Eventually I came back to the book through Susan Weissbauer's book the well-educated mine Is this a book that you all have any have you all read this one before the well-educated mind? Mm-hmm. You have any affiliation or I mean if you're anything by Susan Weissbauer.
Yeah, she's come to the school to talk Yeah, and the well-educated child that was called the well-trained mind. I read the well-trained mind I don't understand this feels like a distinction without a difference in the title educated versus trained. Yeah So the I have not read well-trained mind This one is the subtitle is a guide to the classical education. You never had the format is to go presumptuous I mean of all people to teach on this.
I think she's qualified I never had a classification. I'm sure I will do it. Yeah, so there's a little bit of setup in the beginning Which is essentially equivalent to Mortimer Adler's how to read a book And then she goes into these different sections that are basically groupings of books recommend recommended around a common theme The first set of books around a theme is the theme of a journey taking a journey and so it starts with Don Quixote and it ends with Cormac McCarthy's the road. Oh quite quite bookends to have there.
They're all better in between So that book is a bummer. Sure. I mean carry the flame in carry the flame. I never thought of Cormac McCarthy is like a sprightly happy Yeah, I feel like Meridian doesn't really like it.
It's not really a party. Yeah, you're not happy by the end of that book More than a little bit is something that happens nowhere in a book. So you don't carry the flame. It's kind of a There's something to that anyway, so you know, this is when I first started at Veritas I think I read this book and I was like, I'm gonna read through every one of these book lists I'm gonna follow all these themes like it's gonna be awesome and I made you look at you Well stick with me because I made it halfway through the first book on the first list.
I'm still unfinished it. So anyway, so sorry Welcome to what was the first book? Yeah, so really I don't get out days the first book on the first list. Well, welcome to the intellectual life, Maggie I mean, yes, it is where you read half a book and tell everyone else that you read the whole thing No, it's where you get bogged down you realize like I've made it terrible terrible But I enjoyed that mistake I guess is what I'm saying.
So not get out days like a thousand pages So if again, you've probably seen this before and been like super intimidated at it because it's a long and I'm here to tell you that you should not be Intimidated at it and it's great and everyone should read it. So nine minutes in. That's my entire No, thank you for coming to my top. So you were asking like What do we know about it?
The only thing that I've heard people talk about it is that it is like a book that bridges The middle the end of the Middle Ages to sort of more of a renaissance in Spain So you've got this character that's trying to hold on to the old ways and he's coming up against the new ways. Is that fair? Sure, you are giving it too much credit. Oh great This is also I've had a few instances that have made me think I'm leaving Graemland and moving to AJ lands because I read T.S.
Eliot over the summer and hated it Welcome Christian culture and his book of poetry. Do you like Christianity culture? No, but maybe it's just because I'm dumb But I just it didn't make you want to be like a like a smarmy British Anglican I'm already a smarmy American Anglican. So I got that going for me.
I have so many questions Ellie did this annoying anyway, this is not an Elliot episode But he would do this annoying thing where he would like have a chapter that makes no sense in the opening paragraph of the next of the next chapter is Okay, so what I said in the last chapter was this and I'm like, well, just give me that one paragraph That's all I need. Oh, that's fine. And then his Graem was the one who made the the book list for the summer so I can pin all of this on you But there was also there's a requirement on there to read a book of poetry. Yes, what did you read?
T.S. Eliot, of course, because I'm an idiot and The T.S. Eliot book of poetry has like four or five poems that are in French and I think I comprehended them about as much as the ones that were in English So I should have done out in should have you run into that even so that's on me They're poems I love so I had those things happen and then um in trying to prepare for an episode You know when people talk about Don Quixote, it's like, you know, the first the first novel or the first novel that like we still have There might have been some before that or what you're talking about like this confluence of these great cultural forces But when you actually read it, it's like it's a dumb buddy somebody cops But like it's a dumb buddy comedy romance romance story essentially with an idiot as the main character and like a really smart kind of second-in-command guy And it does not take itself seriously at all and if you read any like meaning into this book, you're really dumb Like it's just a bunch of stories and I was reading them like this book. So anyway, why did you like it?
Maybe you were out of translation. It's very possible the translation was bad. They didn't realize it was funny. That was something you were saying before That's one of our four points for today.
Oh, I also still think I attended it when I was not the book. I can less developed Like three years ago. That's right before you hit puberty This is if I committed to the donkey book or the donkey bit you need to commit to the adolescence bit So, okay, so I'll talk a little bit about the guy who wrote this book Zervantes It's yeah, and then we'll go into a little bit of the overview of the book I've already said this. I've only read through the first part of the book.
It's published in I guess For people who've actually read this book about half of the book is what I'm trying to say the first part is split into like five other parts I'm saying I read those first five parts. So you got me so You don't know anything about Miguel D'Servantes. Do not he's a dude. He's more Spanish dude born around 1547 But this is among this is I guess similar to Shakespeare.
We don't really know when Cervantes was born because it wasn't an important dude He's the fourth kid out of seven He's like literally the middle list of kids of this family of seven and Didn't have a lot interesting happened in his life for a really long time. He That sounds real nice actually just be a dude. Yeah, you just have like a life. We're not a lot Interesting life chances are things will go poorly.
Yeah, you know, I say he has a boring life But his first like professional job is to be a soldier, which I guess it's pretty cool I think it's shot in the hand at some point. He's imprisoned while trying to return home from his soldiering duties And he is a prisoner of war for five years Kind of a gap of not knowing what happens. He becomes a purchasing agent for the government Which sounds so boring in 1592. He becomes a tax collector still has not really done a whole lot of significance He's still just kind of a guy and but eventually starts to writing this story The story about this guy Don Quixote who we will talk about in a second He will eventually publish part one in 1605 He publishes part two in 1615 and whenever you see the giant like thousand page Don Quixote It's those two parts are what you're seeing and then he would go on to die in 16 16 So he dies the year after he publishes the second part of his magnum opus, right?
So he died from diabetes, which was I mean curable They didn't have a or a treble I guess was the way put that and there's this whole thing of them his remains were lost for a while The the place where his bones were buried that renovated it in 1673 his bones were lost and they actually just found them in 2015 So how do they know yeah that thing about the hand being shot and I think he has a rib injury from his time in While he was a prisoner for five years He tried to escape a bunch of times I think he got hurt during that anyway when they found it back about his like I guess it's kind of interesting But anyway all this to reading the story I don't know how you all do prep I way over prepare on the things that don't matter and then way under prepare for everything else But to read the story of the archaeologist as they find the bones They see they see the crack in the bone and realize this is donkey Hote's just this moment of silence as they realize what they found I find it like if you're renovating a place where they do the throw the bones in the trash and they look at that Kind of it's not the trash necessarily, but there are like these alcoves essentially in the it's not a monastery I guess no it's called for a it's a convent. I guess. Oh, I think that's right And essentially there are these little alcoves where they were put in so not the main place where the bones go Kind of off to the side and there were they thought that they thought it was unmarked But when they used I don't know what archaeologists use but it had emcee Miguel Problem is that they were just rushed too much. Yeah, I don't know he has were terrible Early 16 16 no he was the worst he was dirty though So he was in body overflow bones overflow in the kind of well actually that's that's super true because he was buried there With the bones of his wife and I forget if I know he has one he had one daughter And I don't know if her bones were there too, but there were many bones that were there, but among them were sentences So anyway, that's that's the dude himself So just kind of a guy who happened to write this incredible Novel this is a weird thing about him.
There's another famous person who's alive during this time and mr Bill Shakespeare and they both died on the same day. They both died. Wait for it The other both died on April 22nd or one is on April 22nd and one is on April 23rd I will further complicate this by saying that the Spain and England were on different calendars So they didn't actually die on the same day, but they died on the same date. Is that a weird thing?
Yeah, that's frustrating. Yeah, exactly So but anyway they died around the same date in the same year like crazy Yeah, I've been on the same date with a girl and you're on different Yeah, anyway, so April 22nd 16 16 when he dies that part We know and yeah, you didn't make a ton of money off this book and it wasn't really super popular until after he died Which seems like the story of those authors, which is a bummer. That's why I don't feel bad We know about my first book you actually publish a book. No, please publish a book, but I feel like I would read your book That's a fun little attitude to keep you're like constantly failing.
You're like, that's okay. I'm probably great I'm probably gonna be famous. I don't know. I'm okay with that.
I would review y'all's books Maybe favorably on this podcast if you did that I can't imagine a book I wrote would be I'd be like so rambly and I mean kind of like my podcast Okay, so what is this book about so we will only cover the briefest of Intro to this material. We'll talk a little bit about I guess the setting will talk about the point You were talking about Graham of like this being an important book, so it's all stories Yes, it's and they are they and you have this recurring characters. Do you have any recurring characters besides Don Quixote and his buddy? Which I believe means holy belly or some version of that They are the I mean rosinante his horse is also kind of in a weird way a recurring character very much as a personality There's some that are common to different chapters, but they're like 700 characters in the book Yeah, so 700 characters and a thousand pages like you're moving pretty fast these characters And it sounds nothing like my poetic episode characters way too fast except they don't all die in this one It's it's much more like you're birds I'm trying to think an example of like a typical story.
Oh, uh, you have me jumping around. Sorry. No, it's fine I mean the most famous story is um, don't give a day comes upon a set of windmills You have me off. Sorry comes upon a set of windmills He sees them and thinks that a magician has um I'm sorry rather sees them in what he sees is not windmills, but he sees giants So he goes and charges after them runs into one of these windmills his lance.
I mean he breaks everything He breaks his lance. He um falls off his horse He then almost by the shock of him running directly into a like giant windmill looks up and sees oh, these are windmills and it says to Satchapansa Oh, um, some great magician has turned these giants into windmills, right? So he sees a thing clearly but has this like made up story of what has actually happened Um, we'll talk about another one of his stories in a second. Um, talking with kind of the translation thing before we get into like Well, I've already told it where um, who is this donkey hote character?
Um, grom did you say this at the beginning of the recording or were you saying this beforehand? Who who is this Don Quixote fellow? He's someone who thinks he's a knight, right? Or he is a knight.
Is that is he? Is he a knight? I don't know. That's fine.
He calls old. He's an old man. He isn't yeah, that's uh, he's in his 50s. I believe is that an old man?
Yeah, okay. Um, he is in his 50s. He um He is a gentle man. I guess is the way to put it.
He's a um There's like this class of people I'm more familiar with it in England around the same time Maybe a little later where they have an income that comes off of their property, but they don't do very much So like a man of leisure. Yeah, I guess um, he is one of these people so he doesn't work because he doesn't have to he has money Um, coming in we talked about this a long time ago. Most often that's from the property you have There's a rent that is pay from people that use your land. They pay you that money.
Oh, um, so you don't exist Um, you don't land? Yes, you're not as prevalent as it was 500 years ago Um, so he lives off of that money and doesn't be very much and gets into this bad habit of reading stories about knights Um, like I don't know, uh, yeah, but he uh, the ones that they actually point to are like spanish specific knights So I don't like it's not in our same cultural background. I guess I would say Um, and also most of them aren't famous enough to have lasted due today like So romantic tales of the troubadours. Yes, exactly.
Um, so like, um Also, his sentences are very long so it's always very hard to find the beginning And now you must understand that during his idle moments which accounted for most of the year This hit algo took to reading books of shivory with such a relish and enthusiasm that he almost forgot about his hunting and even running his property And his foolish curiosity reached such extremes that he sold acres of arable land to buy these books of shivory And took home as many of them as he could find he liked none of them This is still the same sentence. He likes none of them so much as those by the famous feliciano de silva Because the brilliance of the prose and all the intricate language seemed a treasure to him never more so This is going on so long. Um, but the gag there is that feliciano de silva is a real author who it was like a hack like wrote trashy Yeah, it was like like like airport novels. Yes, exactly So, um, he quotes.
Um, this is why's he by the airport? Yeah, no, no, that's spot on It's like jack steel is a spy. Uh, he quotes from this feliciano fellow. Um, this is a quote from one of his books I believe this is an actual quote.
The reason for the unreason to which my reason is subjected so weakens my reason that I have reason to complain of your beauty Uh, the lofty heavens, uh, which with their stars divinely fortify you in your divinity and make you meritorious of the merits merited by your greatness. That's Anyway, you don't like this. This is really fun. It's really funny.
Yeah, it's really nice. Um, so this is so he reads this and um, what event oh, um In short, I'll go as soon so absorbed in these books that his nights were spent reading from dusk till dawn and his days from dawn till dusk until the lack of sleep And the excess of reading withered his brain and he went mad Everything he read in his books in these books took possession of his imagination. So he I mean he been there Yeah, I mean his his I see some of the symptoms in people who are in our school. Yeah, you're talking about the three of us right now, right?
Um, so his brain is straight up withered by reading books and he begins to think of himself as a character in these books He thinks that he is a knight and that sounds about right. Um, so him realizing that he is a knight means that he has to Find a squire which eventually he will find such a ponza who is just like a peasant dude from around town who's who the running gag is that he's smarter than Don Quixote, um, don Quixote realizes he needs a woman to be fighting for the honor of that's where dulceania comes from Um, I believe dulceania never actually appears in the book. Um, so he talks about this woman who he never actually um talks to and as far as we know does not know that donkey hote like cares about her or wasn't she just like some peasant girl? Exactly.
Um, um, no one brought this up as their background, but there's a I think famous musical version of donkey hote called the man of the mancha Where dulceania is one of the characters in it, but that she would not have actually she's not actually in, um, the book proper So he's a fool. He's a lovable fool. Sure. I don't know if he is.
Is he not lovable? No, he's lovable for sure. Um, but he don't know if he's a fool But he thinks he's a knight and he's gone. He's gone bazonkers But do you not um, so there's a um, I guess we'll move into the translation part Um, and the history of this book often again makes it seem like a more serious book than it actually is And so even the interpretation of the main of the mancha is that he is a knight and he is fighting for noble things He just happens to be slightly delusional.
Um Is that like a gram is that like a thing that you're familiar with in thinking of this book? There's like a hero The thing that I was familiar with is that he's fighting for noble things, but he's now like Living in a time where fighting for noble things isn't needed anymore. That's fair that makes him sound like a kind of tragic figure Yeah, but he doesn't see himself that way. Yeah, that's what makes him make the tragic, right?
But that's hold on to that thought. Okay. Um, any any other um thoughts I did before Jumping on with getting into how this has been translated before do you have some like sense of what the book is about or yeah? I think i'm on board.
I was also wondering if this was the you know, sancho and and the dawn where the basis for samwise and For oh, maybe but I don't see any rosenante in there. I don't think the ring counts. They've uh, maybe got them They don't have a no, there's no horse. I don't think I don't think it is.
Um, but Frodo's not a fool. Frodo's not a fool And he he liked to draw from the Norse I think more than more than this, but uh, you're kind of doing the work that um Do some white power does of trying to connect to that theme of a journey and so that idea is interpreted by many authors So where's he going if it's a journey? Uh, does he have like a we must get to the so-and-so Nope, he's wandering to neither of them. He's just looking for looking for things to do like a knight He wants to do right wrongs.
He wants to right wrongs, which is a That's that's a great fall. Yeah, that's funny because I think at the end of the I just read a summary of the all the king arthur literature I don't know how accurate it was to the originals, but at the end there's so many nights wandering around looking for adventures that eventually they just kind of solve everything Yes, and so there's just a bunch of nights sort of just right around like nothing to do More ventures and more than more ladies are in trouble. They all been saved. I like it.
Um, so this leads us into um, if if you're gonna read this book What you should I'm reading the penguin classics version, which is great translated by john Rutherford Susan wise power recommends the translation by edith grossman. It's a 2003 translation But she does make the point that edith grossman's is more of a an interpretation She calls it a collaboration between himself edith grossman and uh, no, sorry small it wait, hold on Edith grossman and to buy us small it's translations are recommended It's small. It's that is closer to a collaboration between himself and serven to us to produce the popular novel. So Um, but with john Rutherford's I'll just read a little bit from his did kind of get to the point um Most people in translating this book have focused on the like important literary side of the book again calling it the greatest novel means that There must be some seriousness to this.
Um, this is best seen through Of the title that is given to donkey hote. Are you is this a I don't know what it is. Um, in main of the mantra There's a there's a song to it. It's the night of the waffle countenance night of the waffle countenance Um if to give someone that name like describe the person who who who receives the name night of the waffle countenance Someone who doesn't have any sort of hope in the future, right?
So he's so he has he has a despairing or Um, when you yeah, when you see him, he's he's feeling bad. He's feeling bad. He's just big grump And for someone to think of the phrase night of the waffle countenance Like what kind of person would come up with that title? Is that a yeah, who?
Who would you think would give donkey hote that title given it's kind of like an over the top kind of flower language, right? Is it a character in the book or yes about the author the character in the book describe what that character would be like to again When's the last time you used waffle and countenance, you know what I mean? So it would be someone noble. Sure.
There may be another night would give him that title And someone familiar with his character. Sure. Um, that might have been such a ponza Yeah, so in fact it comes from central ponza the point that oh point in a bird It's not quiz show the donkey quiz show is our only quiz show. Um, John Rutherford's point is that such a ponza and a literate peasant fellow would not Use the word waffle countenance.
Um in the original Spanish. It's el cabeiro de la triste figura. It's um El cabeiro is the night de la of the tree stays sad figura is figure So the night of the sad figure is like the direct translation of that But what and this phrase has been translated a number of ways night of the rueful countenance sorrowful figure sad countenance Um in a few others here the point Rutherford is making is that those miss the point of why sancho ponza gives this name to donkey out in the first place So he's so would sancho see him as like he's rich and he's sad and he doesn't have anything to do And he's just like and he thinks he's a hero. You're making it sound like a sad version, right?
Yeah, let me read you This is uh chapter 19. Um in chapter 19, uh sancho and donkey out there are walking along They see these figures in dressed in white walking along carrying um a dead body Uh, donkey out he looks at that and realizes quote unquote realizes that they're ghosts and so to save sancho ponza He goes and fights the ghosts And uh, there's just like two dudes care in the body It's like eight dudes and it's a bunch of priests. Um, and they're literally carrying a body from one town to the like graveyard Well, there are robes. I can see how I thought they were ghosts.
Yeah, sure. That's definitely the most common Yeah, you're not wrong about that. Um, and those look like so You're not like she too. I hope so Yeah, go story.
Um, so um sancho ponza is watching the scene as donkey donkey out to beat some of a bunch of unarmed priests Um sancho was watching it all in maze of his master's courage and saying to himself It's true. This master of mine is just as brave and strong as he says he is Uh, what I think is a tongue in cheek reference. Uh, because he's beating up a bunch of like probably old priest dudes Well, the priests are like, I don't want to deal with this. They abandoned the body one priest has his leg broken by donkey hotte And so then starts answering questions.
Um to donkey hotte Um, they talk back and forth for a while Uh, the priest eventually tells donkey hotte where he's from and where he's going Um, and then sancho ponza is just kind of looking at donkey hotte and then this happens This is a quote from sancho ponza If by any chance those gentlemen want to know the name of the valiant adventurer that did this to them you can tell them He's the famous donkey hotte de la muncha also known as the knight of the sorry face That's how rather translate that phrase the knight of the sorry face The bachelor of arts the priest started writing away slowly and donkey hotte asks sancho why he'd called him the knight of the sorry face And at that moment in particular, why did he name him that? All right, i'll tell you were by sancho I was just looking at you by the light of the poor blokes torch and the truth is that at this moment You're the sorry side i've ever clocked eyes on It must be because of being tired after your fight or else losing all those teeth So literally like the piece is holding a joke. It's a it's 100% a joke But oh, so it's not this like tragic romantic name of the knight that like it's um, it's literally he's just he looks ugly Because he got his teeth bashed out. I think it's the story before I'm not just making fun of him Yes, a bunch of um shepherds through rocks at him and not got his teeth And he's just looking like real ghastly in the in the light of the fire And so the night of the sorry face because he looks real gross It's pretty awesome.
It is great and this is um Rather first comment translators have decided that this m oh, um I didn't read this. Oh, maybe i'll read this in a second. Sancho puns against his reason Um, I just read that to you But don't get a disregard sancho explanation and accepts his new title as an appropriately lofty expression of his noble suffering A heroic epithet rooted in the long and glorious tradition of the knights errantable days gram your interpretation Maybe translators have decided that this ambiguity is untranslatable and it's oppressed to the joke And that's where we get into ill-very face rueful countenance It misses the point of that's not how a peasant would have talked It's not the english equivalent of what a peasant would have said and also it misses the whole point of the joke that's being made right there So sancho is all ago. Yes, there's no go so sancho is making fun of fun of him But so this is kind of interesting because it seems like don kiyote is someone who is taking in all this stuff of his life of the world These stories sancho but he the sort of the prism that he sort of filters it through like his own internal filter already has like a predetermined Outflow.
Yes, like it's going to be a romantic story of knighthood regardless of what happens Yes, and when he sees regular old life happening a bunch of dudes carrying a body is this becomes a it becomes a story of high drama and ghosts Even though it's not true, right? That's not what even when his servant is insulting him and said dude dude your teeth He's like yes, the night of woofo count And he takes it as a title and he'll continue using it not realizing that it's his squire making fun of him the entire time Um, but that's where I don't I'm not entirely sure Sorry faces a good translation. I like the sorry face. I'm pretty sorry looking face Because I'm not sure sir vontis's view in some sense.
This is where me reading the second part will be helpful because that's where I think that's where i'm told it gets more Serious or At the end of the book, you know, I mean, that's where they are interpreting donkey hodays life In the moment, he's made fun of by essentially everyone that he comes across Um, again, whether they're below him in terms of station again as it all go He does have some like level of respect that he's kind of do and he doesn't get that from anyone because he's a crazy guy Just along the lines of translation because this one is also funny. This is from the I mean, it's from the book But it's quoted in the introduction The character's name is SunSone SunSone embraced so this is how Rutherford translates it SunSone embraced donkey hote and begged to be sent news of his fortunes both good and bad to rejoice at the latter or grieve over the former As the laws of friendship required donkey hote promised to do so. What's the joke in that? Are you again?
Yeah, one more time. SunSone embraced donkey hote and begged to be sent news of his fortunes both good and bad To rejoice at the latter or grieve over the former as the laws of friendship required donkey hote promised to do so What's the joke is he saying? He's like if you tell me that you're a good fortune. I can be upset about it Exactly.
So it's you know, the book is full of these like little witticisms if you don't if you're not paying attention. Yes Um, it just says everybody is just already dunkin on donkey. Oh, do you need doesn't realize it? Yes, which makes me better But let me again, but in a weird way poor guy kind okay, but this is how other is he okay?
Is he is he have any sort of cruelty to him like obviously beating up the priest is not good I find him or do you look at him? You're just like on buddy. Uh, I mean it's both right like he literally His mind is melted like he can't help it in some sense. Um, so there's a pretty aspect there But also he's having the time of his life He thinks he's actually fighting ghosts and fighting giants and even when reality faces him He doesn't deal with that.
Um, I'll give that a second just to finish out on this part of this one quote So, you know, there's this little witticism in there about rejoicing at the bad and being sad about the good that happens to donkey hote One of the 20th century translators shies away and writes Samson So changes the name from a Spanish name to an anglicized name Samson embraced the night and begged him to let him know what his luck might be So that he might either rejoice or mourn as the law is a friendship required So the joke is totally erased Another recent translator also refuses the fence and says then Samson gave her night a farewell embrace Begging him as the law is a friendship required to send news of his luck whether good or bad So the one could be rejoiced in and the other be grieved over So it's totally a joke totally missing the joke and that one the joke is totally disappeared at that point And that's where I wonder what translation you had started with a jay because Again, there are still two translations that are just making what should be a weekly comedy serial into something Something it's not just a really boring story about crazy guy who thinks he's a knight, right? Yeah, I wonder so your your thesis is or this guy's thesis The beginning is of this book is that don't kyori for some reason achieved a status of being highbrow literature and was translated as such But in reality it has It's missing missing jokes. Yeah, it is it is literally a show about nothing. Um, I'll get to yeah Just the other funny thing from this introduction to make his point Rutherford has to quote an article called donkey hote has a funny book That's in his but no, it's not that was just a well It's kind of like the same thing I have a Moby dick when I was going into Moby dick I thought it was gonna be this book of like high drama and such pathos about hunting the whale And I did not realize that well, it was sort of five books in one and four of them were hilarious There's such a ton of nonsense in there.
Yeah, love like a last flask was a butterless man Like first and last out last and first out never got better But I guess but Moby dick has both because it's also serious at certain points too. You're saying there are moments of humor that there are a Is there any seriousness in don't kyori? Oh, I think so you um You're having a dump around just get me on my toes. Um, well, I don't know what to you tell me if this is humorous or not Um, so part of this maybe is actually a um an episode about why you should write notes in your books So this is one of the few times I like actually made margin notes in here And so it's just funny to watch the things that I found fascinating four years ago when I was actually trying to read through this book Um, and I also kind of hate it because I keep doing this thing where I'm like Um, I identify with this part of donkey hote or like I get this thing from suncho ponza or uh at the end of this chapter Which is the windmill chapter?
Uh, this makes me think oh, I'm not gonna read that Sorry, it's like actually made me think of specific people of like uh, when faced with evidence they ignore it and then Um, yeah, anyway, I'll um, I'll read the part So you all heard this the windmill. I talked about it just a second ago The part of it that gram i think was your question whether something serious happens is that how you raised it? Yeah, well, I mean like tilting at windmills has also become this I don't know there just seems to be like an interpretive framework around donkey ode that sounds like it may be Not justified, but I don't know enough about it to have a take on that when you say tilting at windmills What does that phrase? Well, usually it's like People the way that I've sort of had people talk or when I when people say that is like uh, you know The lost cause and getting on your horse one last time to go after that one last battle, right?
And it's always struck me strange because it's like well, he's but the windmill is it's like not even real Right, that's that's what I think that may be the context I've heard it in where tilting at windmills means they're fighting against something that doesn't exist Or an imaginary foe. Yeah, that's just just googling it tilting at windmills typically means attacking imaginary enemies Which is the literal thing that happens? I think the question is whether that is romantic or not is it romantic or foolish? Maybe the way to um, um, I put that solidly in foolish or because it in the literal sense he's attacking a windmill Again, but but he wants to live in this idealized world.
Yes, and You and he's just sort of walking around like the real regular world and everyone's just like that stop being a black Stop smacking me. I'm not a ghost and I think that to me that so that's where I wonder if the tragedy is coming in It's kind of like a funny king leer, you know, it's like like an aging person who's lost his marbles The man the man himself is tragic. Yeah, I don't know if he is though. He again.
He's living out of dreams Yeah, he is he's living out of life He's happy with and none of the reality of the situation gets through to him Like is he the like realization of the live your live your truth or you know? I mean like he's living his best life. Yeah, it just happens not to be in conformity to reality The ignorance is bliss, right? It's taking the pill and going back in the matrix sure Because it all tastes like chicken, right?
Was eating the steak is that what that's from? Yeah, I don't remember some about chicken. Yeah. Um, so again So the ending of the windmill story, you know, I made fun of people who get serious messages out of this But I mean, this is the thing that like apparently very much was impactful to me four years ago So again, don't get out of these windmill.
He attacks that he gets himself busted up because To quote the book they were definitely windmills That was an actual quote. Thank you've done another word So, you know, don't get to get beaten up and then for god's sakes at seuncho Didn't I tell you to be careful what you were doing? Didn't I tell you they were only windmills and only someone with windmills on the brain could have failed to see that Not at all friends seuncho replied donkey hote Affairs of war even more than others are subject to continual change all the more so is I believe indeed I am certain That the same sage festan who stole my library and my books has just turned these giants into windmills to deprive me of the glory of my victory Such is the entity he feels for me But in the end his evil arts will avail him little against the might of my sword god will be done replied seuncho ponza I wonder I wonder if the translation there was instead of windmills on the brain like windmill brains Yeah, maybe I wonder that again. That's where if I were better at Spanish I would be able to just read you directly from the Spanish only my windmill brains be told the windmill and there's There's a lot again, you know translation is a thing I find interesting This is one of the first essays that the privacy of this book was one of the first introductions to that idea of The translator has a view on the book and that view on the book will determine the work that they produce right It's not just applying a dictionary to a work in another language It's knowing the book deeply enough to write this well the I believe is in some version of I forget the exact name, but it's essentially like Spanish culture like Spanish middle-aged culture Like this is the time he studies and has due respect for Okay, we've gone through Cervantes.
We talked about kind of intro. We talked about I love a little countenance. I think that might have been all this stuff I really wanted to say since we have a little bit of extra time There are all these things throughout the book that again, I appreciate rather for keeping in The opening line in a village in La Mancha the name of which I cannot quite recall there live not long ago one of those Country gentlemen or he all goes to keep lands in Iraq He goes through he makes fun of this like class of people And then they have this whole thing about not knowing what Don Quixote's real name is his surname said to have been Quixata or quesada Quixata is a I guess a jawbone In quesada's cheesecake. So like just from the very beginning.
It's like not taking the story seriously at all No one can remember jawbone cheesecake and just it doesn't matter and I had meant to say earlier the The premise of the book there's a prologue to it where Cervantes presents Don Quixote as an actual figure So it's him and a buddy talking about this real person Don Quixote. They have to tell this story He's this famous Knight This is the quote from the friend. He's the light and mirror of all Knight air and tree And that's the that's how the book is set up. So that's why again I have trouble saying whether he's Don Quixote tragic or is he actually some realization of the ideal of a knight I'm sure he's out of time.
I'm sure he's delusional, but he's genuinely a kind person He genuinely his interactions with women in particular He's just so kind and treats them as ladies And they you know, they often don't know what to do about it, but it's even women that don't Don't know if I remember it's you know like the Hag women washing clothes and who we call they've lost their beauty They are not anything to look at anymore to him their queens or princesses So do you think there's something about like that kind of life of virtue needs to have some kind of detachment from reality? Like you kind of so one of the things and this is something that I talk about when we in 10th grade when we talk about knights is that Nighthood tends to look at the world Symbolically kind of especially when it comes to other people so you're not dealing with particular woman with a particular like life You're dealing with womenhood woman hood embodied in the examples So you have a disposition that you were supposed to have to womanhood you treat them like Mary herself And then every time that you come across a noble woman You you take up that disposition and and and comport and so There's kind of this like disambiguation with the world that knighthood has where you're treating things as symbolic representations of of a moral Way of living and so it sounds like the book sort of saying like here's somebody that is buying into that Hogg and is living this life seeing everything as a disembodied Moral landscape and he's got son jealous. It's like oh my goodness as a realist He's walking around being like dude is this windmill and I guess the open question is like who is that like who's the happy person? Or who's the you know is is Don Quixote wrong for living?
He's clearly not in reality, but you're like you said he's he's still it sounds like he's still a force of good if not only a force of maybe This is other regular life. Yeah, but that's that's that's that's the flip side Is that he's that he's somebody that you know is going to get he's gonna get the particulars wrong But this is the ultra classic sci-fi question is it better to live in absolute happiness and bliss or to live in reality, right? It's the it's the major question It's the question of everyone who has like an AI virtual reality option or they can you know be plunked into some virtual world that makes them happier I mean if wisdom is I don't talk my wisdom is knowing the world for what it is in all its truest forms then And wisdom is one of those things that leads to happiness then this I don't know if a road of ignorance can be a road to happiness, right? Maybe it will this road will inevitably lead him to sorrows, right?
I mean maybe maybe not sorrows he even realizes but he's how his teeth knocked out or right when he could be a nobleman living and Reading and running his property he is missing out on that good life to go and run himself in the windmill and break it bones Or I do think part of the it's also saying that that life of leisure led to this that because he had nothing to do with his time in Read a bunch of books. He became deluded. Maybe this book is just an invective against bad literature Maybe do there's something to it where it's talking about these two sides of a personality two sides of viewing a situation You've got the Sancho realistic side and then you've got the sort of romanticized Disembodied, you know seeing something as a symbolic gesture So, you know, like if you watch a sports movie like winning the high school football game is a is sort of seen You know, it's a it's a symbol of your life and what kind of man do you want to be when you grow up and you show it on that field versus Oh, we were you know now we're the ball now we're five and two and you know, we're gonna go You know, it's just like there's a reality of it and then there's the the the romanticized story of it And it's just sort of seems like it the story is dealing with both sides of those This is how it's had so much trouble with sports movies. I was like, it's just a ball Yeah, yeah, you won the you still got to go to college after this So that's go your job like you won the championship.
So I gotta pay taxes Yeah, taxes come for you, but I never win mills bro Like I feel like I'm the windmill guy. Yeah, so I'm just wondering if it's just on show If it's playing off those two sort of views of or saying both of those things are needed on the journey I don't know maybe but also I think it's just supposed to be an enjoyable series of stories that are very funny again like this book Almost it feels like um, you know story time before you go to bed like oh, what a donkey hotel It's not what kind of crazy hijinks to get in today and it just continues that over and there are moments where again I find the windmill scene fascinating for the fact that at the end donkey He sees the windmills but tells himself a story that they're actually giants like he has a moment of clarity But his narrative is wrong and so he stays in his narrative. He chooses the narrative over the facts I think that's like an interesting insight. I don't think you know is that like Is that just me finding a lesson again?
Does that have anything to do with the book? No, that's kind that's sort of my point is he sees he sees reality he's he sticks with the narrative right and and then he's got his buddy that sees reality and sticks with reality and Um, it was just the fact that we know that human beings do that like you can see what's real But you then you sort of like please look back into the um, yeah Actually, just do listen to the eric wine sign podcast where he read that essay about the person who was witnessing the beginnings of the holocaust And was trying to write to convince people so it's I mean that's sort of this is a dark turn to this conversation But he sort of makes reference to that psychological thing that people have where you can see reality for what it is but the reality of it is too Hard to slip back into the narrative is there any sort of line in Don Quixote where when Don Quixote realizes that they're actually just when Meals and he wants to live in the nightly realm. They were the imaginary realm and so he slips into it Yeah, I again I need to actually read the like second half of this book my understanding is that's similar to what happens toward the end of the book he has a There's a person who dresses up as a different knight to chase after don Quixote and it's a it's a superhero movie right now So chases after don Quixote defeats him in combat Don Quixote is then ordered by the knight that beats him to go home And that in that starts the decline of Don Quixote. Um, so I wonder it's just like a local townsperson I was like, all right It's someone from college.
I forget where the college is. Yeah, but I'm sure it's not in the module. I'm just like middle nowhere in the context of this Scholars ruin everything. Yeah, but again, I I think it's a book that is not for All of that it's not for finding the interpretive frame for the book It is a book of enjoyable stories And I think that's why I'm trying to like talk about cervantes is like just a dude Like again, these feel like stories that any father could come up with and talking to their son or daughter again before bed at night And again that you can over-intellectualize Yeah, I was just about to say like what Thomas what I really think this is about is it's about technology He was depending on the old technology Yeah, and that technology fails him and then the but the new technology is found within it's where he says he does actually have a helmet that fails him Is that oh, maybe this is oh, I just wanted to harken it back to your your bailable podcast is on the wall that's named Graham Maybe it was a strange you know sort of name Graham.
I actually thought about having a sword named a sword made in the naming it Graham Oh, yeah, like that's good. This is good. It's uh, this book is great and funny and we have a conversation about naming swords I'll uh, I'll just again. I just all I want to do is read quotes from this book all the time And this is I'll this makes sense, but I'll wrap up with the prologue so figure that one out The two friends are going back and forth about how to write a book and how to write a book that's good and that will sell a lot And the friend is saying like just putting a lot of latin phrases like people will think it's like a really smart book And then they just have like random latin phrases in the middle and then they talk about how to like how to cite stuff in the book And so this they go as we're providing in notes You can easily do it like this if you include a giant in your book make him goliath and this alone Which will hardly be any trouble for you will give you a splendid in note because you will be able to say the giant golius or goliath Was a philistine whom the shepherd david slu with a stone from his sling in the veil of the Terribence according to what is narrated in the book of kings in the chapter where you'll find it written in the chapter Oh, it actually goes on even further from there.
Oh, does it really talk about how to be how do you protect your smart? Yeah, anyway, and this is the original author. Yes. This is this is cervantes's prologue to the book again the overarching story is that donkey hote was a real person in the context of the book actually and it's cervantes trying to figure out like How can I be worthy to write this book when I'm such a simple ten and the friends like just act the part like find them random latin phrases And put it in don't look it up like just say whatever you want to it reminds me a lot of the princess bride I read the summer because the you it's have you guys read it?
No The actual story is weird because the author talks about what he's doing is abridging this old famous Italian novel And he like abridged he remembers it from when he was a kid and all this high adventure And then he goes back to read it in half of his politics and the other half is like trade stuff And he's like this is all nonsense I want the fun And so he he abridges it and then writes this novel and so you get these assides from the author in between when he's doing the publishing Process and trying to figure out all these things and give to his kids and have it edited It's all made up he wrote the novel and wrote himself into it in that process It's kind of the same kind of thing. Yeah, it's a delight by the way If you're looking for something to read to kids and have them have a really a lot of fun do voices with princess right like that. That's great Um, yeah, I guess we can oh I guess at some point one of you was asking about whether there are things that connect all the stories to each other In the prologue he makes reference again to these like goofy latin phrases that don't actually mean anything Cervantes actually uses those in the story then Yes, so that's great presented as like this conversation with his friend then he actually takes the advice Do you get a note from the translator not from that's actually a good point I'm so sorry But like there is a giant name Goliath like all that stuff actually happens in the story It's just it's just like Anyway, I again for this being like the first novel I thought it would be like a boring slog and it's actually just a delightful and hilarious read It's designed you can pick up and read any chapter on its own You don't have to like start from the beginning if you don't want to Um, if you know Sancho Ponzas a realist and ducky hote is kind of crazy You can understand every one of the stories that happens So anyway, it's a it's a treat Um, it's a point when I read like you know the second half of this book I will come back and talk about all the serious stuff But for right now, it's just like it's it's the Netflix of classics. So please yeah, it's cool.
So check it out Well, thanks Thomas. I Realize I have a copy of it in my classroom. I may be able to bring home. Yeah, is that fun?
Yeah, it's the old the green spine veritas version probably horrible, right? That's probably super boring. That's my guess So this has been classical stuff. You should know you can email us at the guys at classical stuff.net You can patronize us on patreon by going to patreon.com backslash classical stuff And there and you can find some things to subscribe to help us out with producing this podcast And there's some fun rewards that we've got going on in there for subscribers You can find us on the twits at colesco stuff c l s s c a l stuff and um, you can find all of our episodes on classical stuff.net And then so thanks for listening.
This is the guys signing off grandma j and Thomas